This episode, I am talking with JR Dingwall, a higher ed instructional design consultant who I first met through Jennifer Maddrell and Designers 4 Learning. I chatted with JR over email and I’m super excited to have him on the show because he has a really important story that I want to make sure we cover this season. JR went freelance for a while, and then decided that it wasn’t for him. As someone who is sort of always on the crossroads of this, I’m really interested in how this worked for him!

Get to Know JR

• On twitter @JRDingwall
• jrdingwall.ca
• Module13.ca
• LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/jrdingwall

Things JR mentioned in Passing

• Designers for Learning, and their Service Learning MOOC
• Pressbooks, for OER publishing such as OpenPress
• Professional Communication Open Curriculum

This episode we are back with Wes Atkinson, Co-founder and Lead Technical Consultant at Appitierre Ltd, the makers of the Evolve Authoring tool and the Bloom LMS talking about Evolve as a potential tool.

Last episode, Wes and I talked about the challenges surrounding instructional design freelancers. This episode, I’d like to shift focus to looking a bit more at Evolve as one tool in our toolbelt to solve some of those problems. I’m always interested in free and low-cost tools for myself as an independent contributor and I know all are too, so, let’s talk a bit more about Evolve and Bloom as tools.

This episode, I’m with Wes Atkinson, Co-founder and Lead Technical Consultant at Appitierre Ltd, the makers of the Evolve Authoring tool and the Bloom LMS. And we are going to keep on theme about the freelancer journey but with a bit of a twist, from the perspective of a vendor. Which is super awesome! Vendors get a lot of our flack when we talk or complain and they’re at all of these conferences and events, so they talk to a lot of IDs, and so I’m really excited to be hearing things from this perspective.

This episode I wanted to talk a bit about how I’ve built and continue to build my network from the perspective of an introvert.

I’m going to tackle this in a three-fold answer. First, I want to talk about the impactful things I’ve been able to do in a way that has still allowed me time to think and articulate myself and be generally introvert-y. Second, I want to talk about conferences especially since I’m such a newbie with them. And then, third, I want to talk about the activities I’d like to begin engaging in in the future.

Resources

• Christy Tucker on LinkedIn: https://christytucker.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/linkedin-connections/
• TLDC Community: http://www.thetldc.com/
• Getting started speaking at conferences: http://twist.elearningguild.net/2018/07/proposaltipsfromtheadvisoryboard/
• Another set of tips for conference proposals: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/submitting-your-conference-speaker-proposal-myra-roldan/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3Bn6HPmdhDSVKQcmjL6f5Agw%3D%3D
• Holding the Door open in your own little corner of the web: http://brendandawes.com/blog/holdingthedooropen

We’ve heard in the last couple of episodes with Christy Devlin about some of the things that they have in their freelancing toolbox, things that they feel are worth paying for and using. In this episode, I want to share a bit more about my own toolset, in a few categories. We’ll look at business tools, productivity tools, and professional development.

Resources

• Bobby App to track subscriptions: http://www.bobbyapp.co/
• Cloudinary Image Hosting: https://cloudinary.com/
• Netlify website hosting: https://www.netlify.com/
• Audible to read books: https://www.audible.com/
• Buffer app to schedule social media posts: http://buffer.com/
• Noun Project icon assets: https://thenounproject.com/
• Elearning Art: https://elearningart.com/
• Trello kanban board: https://trello.com/
• Station for collecting your work apps: https://getstation.com/
• Toby for organizing your bookmarks: https://www.gettoby.com/
• One Tab for cleaning up your browser: https://www.one-tab.com/
• Name Cheap for domain names: https://www.namecheap.com/
• Simplecast for podcast hosting: https://simplecast.com/
• About static site generators: https://davidwalsh.name/introduction-static-site-generators
• Stop wasting time as a freelancers:
  https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2018/07/help-i-cant-stop-wasting-time/?ref=webdesignernews.com

This episode, I am talking with Devlin Peck, a recent instructional design graduate student who jumped into freelancing with both feet while still a student. This episode is particularly exciting for me because Devlin had reached out to me previously as he was looking to break into ID and it’s amazing to see how far he’s come and what I can learn from his approach to his instructional design and elearning development business.

Get to Know Devlin

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/devpeck
• Portfolio: http://www.devlinpeck.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devlinpeck

This episode, I am talking with Christy Tucker, an instructional design consultant who has made her name by thinking deeply about what good instructional design is and sharing those thoughts and her learning experiences via her blog. She’s also a frequent contributor the instructional design subreddit, which is where I met her. Today, she is going to tell us more about her journey into freelance instructional design work.

Get To Know Christy

• Blog: https://christytucker.wordpress.com/
• Company Website and Portfolio: https://www.syniadlearning.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChristyATucker

Christy's Resources

• How Freelance Clients Find Me: https://christytucker.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/how-freelance-clients-find-me/
• Blogging to Build Your Business: https://christytucker.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/blogging-to-build-your-business/
• Instructional Design Careers: https://christytucker.wordpress.com/instructional-design-careers/
• Freelancer’s Union: https://www.freelancersunion.org/
• Wave App: https://www.waveapps.com/

In this episode, I try my hand at answering one of the toughest questions around becoming a freelancer: How does that whole feast and famine cycle work?

Resources

• Freelancer's Union Resources: https://blog.freelancersunion.org/
• Breaking the Feast and Famine Cycle: https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2018/05/30/breaking-the-freelance-feast-or-famine-cycle/
• Are you Charging Enough? https://blog.freelancersunion.org/2018/05/24/are-you-charging-enough-probably-not/
• On Workflows: https://blog.trello.com/what-is-a-workflow-and-why-do-you-need-it
• Station app: https://getstation.com/
• Pomodoro Technique: https://lifehacker.com/productivity-101-a-primer-to-the-pomodoro-technique-1598992730
• Value Based Pricing Tips:
  • https://medium.com/the-apartment/a-freelancers-guide-to-value-based-pricing-5c7c29580cd6
  • https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianaltman/2015/10/08/how-to-shift-from-hourly-to-value-based-pricing/#296c85623467

In this episode, I take a walk down memory lane and talk about my journey into freelancing.

I talk about how I fell into freelancing, mistakes I've made that you should definitely learn from, frustrations I've faced, and rewards I've reaped. If you're looking to dive into freelancing, it's my hope that listening to my story will give you one perspective into what the journey might be like.

Resources

• Resources for freelancers: https://medium.com/@freebiesbug/15-new-tools-to-supercharge-your-freelance-work-2018-94c51a9da611
• On Workflows: https://blog.trello.com/what-is-a-workflow-and-why-do-you-need-it
• Design is a Job: https://abookapart.com/products/design-is-a-job
• I don't really wanna do the work today (my theme song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2EI65ZEqYQ
• Mini Habits: http://minihabits.com/
• Lessons Learned Working Alone: https://medium.com/@jillcarlson/working-alone-165ababeafc2

In this episode, I (finally!) wrap up season 3 and talk about the future of Dear ID. Thanks so much to all of you for listening!

Resources

• Emanuelle Feranto: https://www.emanueleferonato.com/
• Color Curriculum: https://twitter.com/ColorCurriculum
• UXLX (my app!): http://www.lxresearch.info/

In this episode, I sit down with Svein-Tore, the founder of H5P, an amazing open source authoring tool for creating elearning interactions. We discuss the story behind H5P, the benefits of using an open-source tools and the opportunities that H5P brings newbie IDs.

This is an amazing set of tools bundled together FOR FREE! If you're an ID newbie looking to create interesting things, including interactive video, give H5P a try!

##Learn More

• H5P: https://h5p.org/
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/H5PTechnology